That Luncheon at Eryholme
by Edward Carson
Summary: As the Granthams gather at Eryholme on the eve of their anticipated departure from Downton, Cora reflects on Carson's disturbing revelation about Mrs. Hughes's health. An expanded account of that family outing in the country in Season 3, Episode 3.
**That Luncheon at Eryholme**

There was a surge of activity at the door as the family gathered to make their departure to Eryholme. Edith, Sybil, and Tom got into one of the house cars, with Tom taking the wheel. They should have had a driver, but he had insisted. Mary and Matthew had their sports car, but didn't look as happy as they might have to be off on their own. Robert didn't wait for Cora to join him before getting into the car. Already he was moody. Cora had only stepped out the door when Carson, after dispatching Alfred to the first car, called her back.

" _Might I have a word, m'lady_?" *****

She turned to him. _"Yes, of course. What is it?"_

He shifted uncomfortably. _"This is a slightly awkward request, what with the wedding tomorrow."_

Cora waited patiently. Although she had known Carson for thirty years, there remained a level of formality between them that did not exist between Carson and Robert. Cora could not decide if this was because she was a woman or an American, or merely a reflection of the fact that the two men had known each other all their lives. For practical purposes, it did not really matter. It meant that Carson spoke to her with a degree of circumspection and she just had to live with it.

" _Tell me_ ," she said.

" _Mrs. Hughes is very tired. I wonder if it might be possible for you to divert some of her work my way?"_

It was an odd thing for him to say. _"I don't understand. What do you mean 'tired'?"_

He hesitated and Cora frowned. This seemed beyond even Carson's usual reserve.

" _Cora!"_ Robert's voice broke in on them. Though he said only her name, Cora heard not only his impatience at being kept waiting, but also the sharp edge of aggravation stemming from the purpose of this unorthodox excursion. Robert was trying to come to terms with his financial failure and its implications for the family and the estate, but thus far not managing it very well. Cora did not want to exacerbate his irritation, but Carson's unsettling demeanor kept her rooted to the spot.

" _Carson? If you know something, then please tell me."_

Still he hesitated and her own unease grew. She suspected he was wavering over whether or not to break a confidence. But that he was considering doing so - he, the soul of discretion - meant that he was troubled indeed.

" _Carson?"_ she prompted him again.

He appeared to make up his mind. _"The fact is, Mrs. Hughes is ill, m'lady. She may be very ill. I'm extremely sorry to trouble you with this at such a moment, but I don't want the wedding to sink her."_

This was a shocking revelation indeed and Cora hardly had time to take it in. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. _"Of course not. But, my heavens, how will we manage, without O'Brien and now Mrs. Hughes?"_

Her question startled Carson. _"Miss O'Brien?"_

" _She told Molesley..."_

" _Cora, please!"_ Robert's tone indicated that he would brook no more delay.

Cora glanced over her shoulder at him and then back at Carson, shrugging helplessly. _"I'm coming."_ She took her seat beside Robert in the back of the car and as it began to move she looked past her husband through the window to the butler who remained at the door of the house. He had struck his usual pose, all rigid formality, but his face wore a deeply troubled expression.

"What was that about?" Robert asked.

Cora opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it again. Robert didn't really want to know. He was just expressing his irritation. And, in truth, she couldn't have answered his question anyway. What _was_ that about?

Mrs. Hughes ill? And ill enough that Carson should feel the need to bring that fact to the attention of the lady of the house? Ill enough that he should want to assume some of her duties? This _was_ serious. And how had she responded to this bombshell? _What?...O'Brien and now Mrs. Hughes_? She was exasperated with her self-absorption.

Irked by her own behaviour, she felt an additional spark of irritation with Robert for disrupting the conversation before she knew all. They were taking a leisurely excursion in the country, not dining with the King at Buckingham Palace! What on earth would it have mattered if they left immediately or five minutes later? But, of course, Robert was, in this moment, deeply immersed in his own concerns.

She tried to listen. He was grumbling about everything. It wasn't quite as warm a day as they might have hoped for and he wondered whether Mama would even come. And perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing if she didn't, because she looked at him these days with such accusing eyes.

"She does not!" Cora said emphatically. "Your mother worships the ground you walk on!"

"If only that were true."

Mary and Matthew were squabbling and what did _they_ have to be unhappy about? They were in the bloom of life.

Cora might have pointed out that the downfall of Downton fell almost as heavily on Mary's shoulders as on those of Robert and his mother, but forbore doing so. He wasn't listening to her anyway.

He made a perfunctory dig about the "chauffeur" and how he was enjoying their misfortune and couldn't even be bothered to conceal it.

"Robert! That is completely untrue." Tom was not, perhaps, terribly sympathetic, but he'd kept his own counsel about their misfortune.

And then he got started on Sir Anthony Strallan. At this point, she just let him go. This compulsive ranting did not really reflect his feelings, she knew, but was instead a manifestation of fear and tension and...embarrassment. Cora was convinced that Robert might better deal with what was in effect only - _only_ \- a diminution of his lifestyle if it could be done quietly and without notice. It was the public humiliation of it all that took him to the edge. He'd been trying out versions of the "for sale" notice on her for the past few days, his tone always bitter. He imagined the smug self-satisfaction of his still financially-buoyant peers enjoying his downfall and relishing the details of the personal failure that had brought him so low. In such moments Cora thought him terribly harsh on his friends.

Robert was losing the life he had always known, the life he had complacently regarded as impervious to the world's ills, and he owed this in large part to a miscalculation of his own hand. He was, of course, more than justified in mourning that loss, although Cora thought he was painting a darker picture than need be. It wasn't the end of the world. After all, it _was_ only his _material_ life that was in peril. Mrs. Hughes was on a different plane altogether.

If Carson's sombre demeanor and agitated confidence suggested anything, it was that Mrs. Hughes might be fearing for her very life. Of course, Carson had imparted little in the way of concrete information, but the whole episode disturbed Cora. The usually unflappable butler had appeared distraught. A deep emotional attachment might trigger an overreaction to what was, in reality, a manageable problem, but Cora set aside this possibility. Carson and Mrs. Hughes were colleagues of longstanding, but did not occur to Cora that there might be something more there. No, the butler's perturbation suggested instead a grave situation. This was going to prey on her mind until she had spoken with Mrs. Hughes herself. And in the meantime, the family had their own crisis with which to deal.

Alfred had come along, riding in the front seat with Tom, and gone about the work of setting up luncheon on the lawn at Eryholme with an admirable dispatch. The lovely Georgian house had been in the family for four generations but had not been occupied by them, even briefly, since the late Earl's death. Cora had reminded Robert to alert the tenant, a Mr. Goodfellow, of their visit, but it had slipped his mind.

It _was_ a nice day after all and Mama _had_ come, driving up with Sir Anthony and Isobel Crawley in his Rolls Royce. No doubt that company had made for some strained conversation. Mama was not at all supportive of Edith's engagement and until the ring was actually on her finger - and possibly might not desist even then - she was determined to convey her disapprobation at every opportunity.

They were not a cheery party.

Even with a flute of champagne in his hand and on the eve of his third daughter's wedding, Robert remained sullen. He kept casting dark looks at the house, which might have unsettled the tenant, were he to observe this.

Mama was no better. Like her son, she painted their expulsion from Downton in apocalyptic terms - losing house, home, heritage, all that she held dear. The only thing that kept her in check at all was Robert's responsibility for it. She wanted to blame him, but loved him too much to feel comfortable doing so. She was conflicted, a state she abhorred. She diverted herself with an only half-amusing digression on where she was to live and what she might do to ensure the bills were paid. Robert reminded her that they still owned half the village, relieving her - and Cora - of the prospect of her living with them.

Mary was also out of sorts and for much the same reasons. She was still struggling with denial, not quite able to conceive of such a disaster befalling _her_. And she mourned the loss of Downton for an as-yet-unconceived son. But there was, too, something else amiss, as Robert had noted, between Mary and Matthew. Perhaps, Cora mused, it was that Matthew, like Cora herself, was more sanguine about changing circumstances.

The others were not so burdened, but their very lack of melancholy only exacerbated tensions. Sybil had already cut her ties with Downton and was not touched by its loss. Tom's pointed observation, that the much smaller house at Eryholme would have struck the average person as a "fairy palace," was unhelpful and Cora was glad that Robert did not hear it. Edith simply didn't care. Tomorrow she would marry Sir Anthony Strallan and move to her own lovely home. She was taking satisfaction in the fact that she would assume a leading role in county life while Mary would be exiled to the hinterland to live in a much smaller house. Isobel was urging them all to look on the bright side - fewer responsibilities, fewer social obligations, fewer servants - completely oblivious to the sledgehammer-like impact of the word _fewer_ on Mama, Robert, and Mary.

Yet Cora favoured a more optimistic outlook herself.

"It's a lovely house," she said.

"We'll have to dismiss most of the servants," Robert responded morosely. This was not, Cora knew, a self-serving statement. Robert, like his parents before him, believed that the purpose of a great estate was to provide employment. To reduce the staff was to betray the community that depended upon you. It was a responsibility Robert took seriously.

"Downton Place," Cora tried again.

"It's unlucky to rename a house," Robert said.

Cora did not remind him that it had been his idea.

Robert lapsed into a moody silence and Cora drifted away from him, retreating into her own thoughts. _What could be wrong with Mrs. Hughes_? Carson had said she was _ill_ and might be _very ill_. But what did that mean? Cora had noted nothing out of the ordinary in her meetings with the housekeeper over the past few weeks, made more frequent by the preparations for the wedding. Could it be cancer? Cora shrank from the word as any sensible soul would. _Oh!_ She hoped that was not the case. But what if...?

She turned toward the house again, examining it through a different lens this time. If there _was_ something wrong with Mrs. Hughes, seriously wrong that is, then she would come with them to Eryholme. They had a duty to her. The woman had been with them for twenty-five years and given them exemplary service. Robert had said they would need _eight servants, tops_. They could not count her among that number. Cora's eyes wandered over the windows. It wouldn't be reasonable to expect her to inhabit a room in the attics with the other servants. She would require a restful environment, a cheerful space. It might be irregular to have a servant occupying a room on the main floor with the family, but it was not unprecedented. William Mason had spent his last days in a room on the gallery at Downton, and while that was during the extraordinary circumstances of war when the Abbey had served as a convalescent hospital, was this not an extreme situation as well? And it wasn't only a matter of providing her with bed and board, but also appropriate care. If she had a terminal illness, the servants might attend to her in the short term, but eventually they would have to hire a nurse. Sybil might be helpful in advising there.

Cora had been wondering about the wisdom of Robert's decision to withhold from the staff - even from Carson - the news of their impending move from Downton. But given this new twist, she thought perhaps it had been a good thing. Neither Carson nor Mrs. Hughes needed the additional worry of Downton's future - and their own - just yet. They would all get through the wedding and then deal with it, together.

 _Oh, dear. 'Get through.'_ Even in her own mind she was depicting Edith's wedding day as something of an ordeal to be _got through_.

"Lady Grantham... Cora. Are you well?"

Cora suddenly became aware of Sir Anthony's presence beside her. They stood a little apart from the rest, who were either seated at the fold-out tables or wandering the lawn, champagne glasses in hand. Sybil and Tom strolled, hand in hand, with the family and yet in a world of their own. Farther on, Mary and Matthew appeared to be engaged in a less pleasant conversation, if their mutual frowns accurately reflected their conversation. Edith sat between her grandmother and Isobel, looking radiant, oblivious to Granny's dour countenance and Isobel's effervescent mien. Cora fleetingly wondered if Isobel was as supportive of Edith's decision as her outward appearance suggested.

"Sir Anthony? I mean, Anthony?" Cora realized he had spoken, but hadn't focused on what he'd actually said.

"You seem rather far away."

Cora paused. He was a nice man, Anthony Strallan. He and Robert had known each other all their lives, and Cora had seen much of him and his wife Maud at county events over the years. No one ever had a bad word to say about him. Or a particularly good one. He was just there. But if that was the worst thing about him...

And he had noticed distraction, the only one of this self-absorbed throng to do so. Cora rewarded him with a radiant smile. "The cares of a large house, Anthony. They're never far from you." This was true, as far as it went.

"Not worried...about tomorrow?"

 _Of course_ she was worried about tomorrow, because she _was_ worried about Edith. It was the ambition of every mother to see her daughters well married. The primary concern, at this level, was to ensure a _proper_ marriage, which meant a union that would secure or better a daughter's social status, preferably with the financial wherewithal to support it. Love was a desirable element, but not a required one. Cora herself had made such a marriage. Sir Anthony offered Edith _all_ of these things, and yet... Robert had openly expressed his misgivings all along. Cora had been less dogmatic. If only _Mother_ hadn't interfered. But no, she couldn't blame this on her mother. Edith had dug in her heels in a powerful display of stubbornness, determined that for once she would have her way, and Robert, and Cora, too, had yielded. If only they did not share the sensation of being in a first-class carriage on a runaway train.

Still, it wasn't the end of the world.

There was that phrase again. Mrs. Hughes. Whatever was wrong might very well be the end of _her_ world.

Cora was suddenly anxious to be away. Eryholme was their future and they would deal with it when it came to them. And for all his broken-heartedness, Robert would survive and, eventually, recover. And so would Mama and Mary. This might not be the case for Mrs. Hughes.

Just thinking about her wrenched at Cora's heart. It was bad enough to be frightened about disease and dying without having to worry about what would become of you while you endured them. Cora realized that she might be anticipating too much here, but better to err on the side of too much compassion than too little. Mrs. Hughes was an integral part of the Downton family, membership in which was not exclusive to blood or social status. It wasn't the physical structure of Downton Abbey that united them, but the bonds of a lifetime lived together. As such, Mrs. Hughes must be assured that whatever awaited her, she would not have to face it alone.

 _I will speak to her first thing_.

 ***AUTHOR'S NOTE:** The italicized dialogue here is drawn _verbatim_ from _Downton Abbey_ , Season 3, Episode 3. Julian Fellowes. _Downton Abbey: The Complete Scripts, Season Three_. (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014), 156-157.


End file.
